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POURNELLE
September 18, 2019
During the dark days of the early 70s,
1960s neoprimitivism still ruled many
minds, and a rather irrational
anti-technological sentiment was rampant.
PROMETHIAN_DREAM
Pournelle was one of the
few contrary voices, a
reminder of the promise FLORID
of technology. NEUTRAL
Despite being a nominal
fiction writer his I just did a once around on the
strongest work was net looking for some examples of
a non-fiction column this column, without much luck.
in Galaxy magazine,
"A Step Farther Out" At present I don't have access to old
issues of the magazine, nor do I know
where my copy the collected volume of the
In was one of the *very* same name has ended up.
few places where you
could find the case made And actually, as I remember it the
for nuclear power. that compilation was fairly weak--
my personal greatest hits would've
read differently.
In many respects,
Pournelle was a large I see that multiple editions of that
influence on me-- e.g. he book were published... as should be
was in favor of the expected, I suppose, for a man who
"Strategic Defense gamed the system and managed to
Initiative", aka become a Best Selling Author.
anti-ICBM weapons, but
somewhat moderately so--
he made the point that it Gaming the system: Pournelle teamed up with
was unlikely a "missle Niven, intentionally seeking out another
shield" would work author who was much more popular than he
against a full Soviet was
attack, and yet the
anti-missle weaponry (Niven's "Known Space" stories, cluminating
could be valuable to deal in Ringworld, were must reads for the geek
with other cases, such as squad in those days, back when Science
an attack from a more Fiction was still an underground literature
minor power or the and it was not yet cool to be a nerd.)
accidental launch of a
small number of missles. Niven's capabilities-- never that strong,
really, he was something of an idiot savant
among "hard SF" writers-- were beginning to
It was a definite pattern fade, and Pournelle's strengths
of Pournelle's to examine complemented Niven: Pournelle had a better
the unthinkable and try to grasp of technical knowledge, and perhaps
contrive circumstances more importantly he had a
where you would have to libertarian/promethian ideology that served
think it. E.g. in as the backbone for some of their better
Jannissaries (I think) his work, e.g. "Lucifer's Hammer".
heroes become slave masters
to placate some alien LUCIFERS_HAM
invaders while the good
guys plot their underground A fine pro-nuclear In one of their more
counter-attack... novel, and a fair obscure works, the
pro-space one. fairly strange
Arguably, an early take-off on Dante
troller of the libs. Some objected to titled "Inferno",
using poison gas there's a mention at
on the bad guys the outset of gaming
(a cannibal the Hugo awards: the
horde, I kid not). key to winning one was
(supposedly) to hold
lots of convention
parties giving away a
lot of free beer.
In retrospect, my young
enthusiasm for Pournelle
seems at least mildly I gave up on Pournelle for good in
embarassing-- he's a good the late-80s, when in his column in
example of the kind of Infoweek he said something like "So
volunteer disciple of the Soviet Union has collapsed. I
Heinlein that as Charles rather expected it."
Stross put it, lacked
Heinlien's "twisty mind". Pournelle had written a
series of stories in a
But you know, if I've seen it said future where earth was
you were a that he opposed the ruled by the CoDominum,
defender of the Iraq War, which I am the US and USSR combined A case of
true faith of glad to hear, though into a single agency. trolling
transcendent it's a bit of a the right?
technology back surprise. That puts He commented that when
in the days of him one up on a he and Niven joined
"I'm going back number of Heinlein forces on "The Mote in
to the plow" and wannabe's. God's Eye", he insisted
"oh my god, we're on using his CoDominum
going to die of (Pournelle universe, because he
*radiation*", you had been in just "couldn't believe"
didn't have many favor of in Niven's Known Space
places to turn. Vietnam.) where the UN has become
the earth's government.
PROMETHIAN_DREAM
I turned up another fellow
who's traveled a similar
(though not identical) arc
on these things:
TECHNO_CRACKS
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